The Surface Pro 3 Is My Kind Of ‘Laptop’

I started using a tablet within a few months of them existing in the market place, I’ve owned many an iPad since they were released, but I’m still a passionate laptop user. I’m currently using a Thinkpad x230 and an iPad mini and truth be told I’m mostly satisfied.

I still have a few niggles though, that the Surface pro 3 seems to fix:

The Thinkpad is just that little bit too heavy – fixed

The Thinkpad battery life, at 5 hours, just a fraction too short – fixed

The Thinkpad screen resolution just a little too low – fixed

The iPad screen much too small for magazines and most business PDFs – fixed

I have no way to annotate on presentations and documents – fixed

I love to share my screen and sketch freehand during meetings – sorted

I never get around to reading analyst reports – no more excuses

I never have paper with me when I want it – sorted

Last year I tried out the Surface and original Surface Pro, but they didn’t quite work, the Surface Pro was close but:

The Touch cover was rubbish – probably fixed

The battery life was terrible – fixed

The screen was ‘just wrong’ in portrait mode and A4 PDFs didn’t work at all – fixed

I work mainly with the Thinkpad on my lap – probably fixed

The kickstand was never at the right angle – fixed

All in all this is a pretty good score!

On paper I’m pretty sure that the pro 3 could replace by beloved Thinkpad and address the tasks that the iPad fails at. The issue is could it replace the tasks that the iPad excels at, probably not! So I would still end up carrying the pro 3, iPad and iPhone, but even so that would be progress because 100% of my mobile use cases would be met instead of the 70% that are met today.

The big question remains, could I give up the Thinkpad keyboard and form factor that’s been my constant companion for 17 years! There’s only one way to answer that someone needs to get me a pro 3.

I'm retired from work as a business and IT strategist. now I'm travelling, hiking, cycling, swimming, reading, gardening, learning, writing this blog and generally enjoying good times with friends and family